


Assistance, Please

by ObscureReference



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Freshman Year, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 22:12:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6489334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the d-men—<i>Holster</i>—says, “Holy hell, Bitty’s like one of those fainting goats,” but that’s not the first time Ollie notices that Bittle can’t take a check.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Assistance, Please

**Author's Note:**

> On my tumblr, I once said something along the lines of, "“Man, how cool would it have been if Ollie and Wicky were actually friends with freshman Bitty and helped him out?” 
> 
> Well. Here we are.

 

One of the d-men— _Holster_ —says, “Holy hell, Bitty’s like one of those fainting goats,” but that’s not the first time Ollie notices that Bittle can’t take a check.

_Anybody with eyes_  can see he can’t take a check. Bittle plays a good game and he’s fast as hell, but he’ll twist out of the way or turn to stone the moment another player gets too into his space. At first Ollie just feels bad for him. Bittle obviously must have wowed the coaches with his audition tape to have made it on the team, but Ollie’s not sure he’ll last much longer at this rate.

And then—and  _then_ —Bittle gets called onto the ice with Knight and Wicky during the Yale game. They’re not exactly getting their asses kicked, but everyone gets slammed into the board or on their face at one point or another. He’s sure Bittle is going to get absolutely flattened out there.

Except he doesn’t. Instead, Bittle pulls off the shot of a lifetime  _with his eyes closed._ The captain might be the only one who doesn’t run up to congratulate him, but even if he doesn’t, Ollie thinks they can make something of this kid. He shares a look with Wicky from the other side of the board and makes a note to talk with Bittle the first chance he gets.

The party that night is  _sick,_ and he’s pretty sure the team gives Bittle the honor of first kegster of the year.  _Pretty sure_ , because Wicky grabs Ollie by the back of the neck the first chance he gets, bumping their knuckles together in celebration, and presses a cup of  _something_  into his hand. The rest of the night is a blur. He’s pretty sure it was fun though.

He doesn’t find Bittle until a few days later because of school and work and the trials of living across campus. Technically, he’s pretty sure that as a freshman, Bittle must live across campus too, but somebody points him in the direction of the Haus soon enough.

“Kitchen,“ Oluransi— that is,  _Ransom—_  says. "That guy loves to bake.”

Ollie’s pretty sure he’s heard someone say that before. He’d just forgotten.

Ollie knows that  _Wicky_ knows he’s going to talk to Bittle, but he purposely left Wicky behind for this one. They’ve talked on and off and they have a good fist bump routine going on, but Wicky can be kind of gruff sometimes. He looks kind of gruff too, which Ollie isn’t really bothered by. A small guy like Bittle might be bothered by it though, considering how much he freezes up on the ice.

The whole point of talking to Bittle in the first place is that Ollie wants to work on that.

Nobody locks the door to the Haus presumably because nobody would be stupid enough to break into a rundown shack full of six foot tall athletes. Ollie walks right in.

He finds the kitchen and knocks on the frame of the doorway with the back of a curled fist. “Hey, Bittle, you got a minute?”

He thinks he’s pretty lucky because he asks just as Bittle is closing the door to the oven, whatever he’s baking already set inside. Bittle looks up at him, blinking. He’s wearing an apron.

“Of course,” Bittle says brightly, even though he’s obviously befuddled as to why in the hell Ollie is talking to him in the first place. “Do you need something? And call me Bitty.”

_“Bitty,”_  Ollie says. “That was a hell of a shot at that last game.”

Bitty blushes immediately, ducking his head. Despite that, he’s practically glowing with pride. Ollie would be too if he’d made that shot.

“Oh, well, I—”  

And then something in Bitty face falls a little, like he’s remembering something. Ollie feels something in him fall with it. He frowns.

“Actually,” Bitty says slowly, mouthing the words like they’ve come from somebody else’s mouth. “It was just a lucky shot. But thanks.”

Bitty’s shoulders have fallen, but Ollie finds himself standing up straighter to compensate.

“Maybe it was luck  _this_ time,” he says. “But you have some skill. I bet you could make another shot like that if you had to.”

Bitty peaks at him from under his bangs. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Ollie says. “You just need some help with your other thing.”

“My other thing?”

“Checking,” Ollie clarifies. Bitty deflates all over again, and Ollie frowns. That wasn’t the goal here. “All you need is some extra practice and you’ll be fine.”

“Oh, well, actually Jack ran a checking practice with me already,” Bitty says quickly, like he knows what’s coming. And then he adds, slower, “Though I don’t think that’ll be happening again anytime soon.”

Ollie can’t tell if Bitty’s relieved by that or not, or even if he was supposed to hear that part at all. He blusters through it anyway.

“Great!” He says. “So you can practice with me and Wicky then.”

“Practice with y'all?” Bitty repeats. “You mean checking practice? Like getting up at the crack of dawn and having you throw yourselves at me?”

He makes a face at the end of his sentence like he’s disgusted with either that part specifically or the idea in general. Ollie can’t tell which.

“Yep,” Ollie agrees, voice filled with as much enthusiasm as he can muster. “It’ll be awful!”

“Oh, joy,” Bitty says dryly. He glances at the oven clock even though more than five minutes can’t have passed already. “I don’t know if—”

“At least once,” Ollie says quickly. “And then you can say no the next time if you want to.”

When Bitty doesn’t say anything immediately, he adds, “You’re a great player, Bitty. But you could be even better.”

Ollie thinks it won’t mean much coming from a fellow freshman, someone not much older than Bitty himself, who probably won’t get as much ice time as Bitty now that Bitty’s scored that winning goal.

But sometimes Ollie surprises even himself, because Bitty says:

“Okay. Just once though.”

Ollie smiles. “‘Swawesome.”

“And I reserve the right to be told  _the day before_ anybody needs to wake up at five in the morning,” Bitty says like someone had totally  _not_  given him such a warning recently.

Ollie nods.

“Will do.” He leaves Bitty to his pies.

He and Wicky are  _totally_ gonna have one of their best fist bumps yet when Ollie gives him the news.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment below or check out my tumblr (http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/) where I sometimes post stuff under the "my fic" tag.


End file.
